


Crow Time, Crow Time, It's Time For Cr- Oh God No Stop

by coolshark



Category: Nomad of Nowhere (Web Series)
Genre: Character Death, Crows, Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolshark/pseuds/coolshark
Summary: See, because a group of crows is called a "murder," haha, oh god I'm a monster.





	Crow Time, Crow Time, It's Time For Cr- Oh God No Stop

**Author's Note:**

> The fantastic art that inspired this piece was drawn by DeviantArt user lilfigure2! check them out and make sure to smash that mf like button for their art.

It was sunset when they saw the first crow.

The sun’s rays broke over the rocky outcropping where they were sheltering, and Skout took a moment to catch her breath in the vaguely cool but still blessed shade while the Nomad took a look ahead. Presently he returned with an armful of wood, and in a few minutes they had a small but cheery fire going. They sat close beside it.

“Thanks, friend,” Skout panted. “Sorry I couldn’t go out myself- this sure is one heck of a heatwave we’ve had, huh?” She gratefully took the bread he offered, but hesitated at the sight of the canteen. “Well, I dunno,” she began. She ran a sun-scorched hand through her fiery hair. “I reckon it’d be best to save that water for later-”

With a scowl, he shook the canteen at her. The canteen scowled too and placed its tiny hands on where its hips might have been- it was hard to tell with canteens.

Skout’s laugh quickly turned to a dry cough. “Guess I _am_ thirsty,” she admitted, her voice little more than a husky rasp.

The Nomad watched with narrowed eyes until she’d drunk at least half of it. “There, happy?”

She set the canteen down. It promptly sat next to the fire and stuck out its little hands, warming them.

“You really don’t got any need to worry so much,” Skout said, jabbing a finger the Nomad’s way. “I’ll have you know I’m _plenty_ good at survivin’ the wilderness. _I_ got _books!_ I _had_ books,” she corrected herself morosely a moment later. “Darn shame that sand worm had to go and eat ‘em all- which, might I add, wouldn’t a happened if _someone_ didn’t go and _feed_ them to it! Why, if I had a penny for every time you fed my books to some oversized critter, I’d have at _least_ three pennies. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but most folks’d have _no_ pennies at this rate, so that’s pretty- hey! Are you _mocking_ me?”

The Nomad stopped opening and closing his hand in a _blah blah blah_ motion to slap the same hand over his chest in a shocked gesture, eyes wide. The canteen repeated this gesture.

“You can’t lie to me! I _saw_ you doing it!”

The Nomad rested his hands on his hips, but before he could formulate a properly witty reply, a harsh caw echoed over the desert, too loud and far, far too close.

Slowly, Skout and the Nomad turned to see a single, dark crow, perched on a rock a few feet away. It watched them with cold, intelligent eyes.

“Hey,” Skout said. “That there’s a crow.”

The Nomad nodded slowly.

Neither of them looked away.

A whisper of wings, and a second caw from directly above caused both of them to jump. Was its beak too sharp? Its talons too long? Certainly malice hung in its glare.

“Well I’ll be. It’s another one,” Skout murmured.

Again, the Nomad nodded.

“Reckon we’d better move on.”

This time, it was a vague thumbs up. The Nomad stood up, pulling Skout up with him. He held out his other hand, and the canteen jumped into it. It stared with huge eyes at the crows, then burrowed its way into his vest. The Nomad rolled his eyes. What a coward.

Truthfully, Skout and the Nomad were no better. They raced across the desert wastes, fast enough for their feet to send up little puffs of dust behind them.

The crows didn’t give chase. They remained on their perches, merely watching.

Merely waiting.

The sprint fell into a jog, which slowed to a walk as the sun finally dipped below the horizon.

Presently, Skout rested a hand on his arm. “I reckon we’ve gone far enough,” she mumbled. “I’m so tired I could just… curl up just ‘bout anywhere. Anyway, crows don’t come out much at night, right?”

The Nomad scanned the land ahead, nervousness prickling at him. _Normal_ crows didn’t come out at night. But one look had told him those crows were far from normal. Much too far. But Skout had to rest. Even a glance told him that; her laboured breaths, her dragging steps, her limp hair or the way she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Anyone, even an uneasy scarecrow, would have been able to see it.

So in the ruins of an old stone house, the two of them huddled- Skout under a thin blanket, and the Nomad from any prying eyes, while they waited for dawn to come, in the bitter cold of the desert night.

When the sun did finally arrive, it illuminated a crow that perched on a half-crumbled wall.

The Nomad blanched. He hurried to Skout’s side and prodded her, more than uneasy now, frantic.

“Wha- what’s goin’  on? Oh.” She caught sight of the crow. She paled, only slightly. “Well, that- that sure is a crow. Let’s go.”

They went. The flat wasteland they were in gave way to a rocky ridge, where lizards basked and the occasional scraggly plant managed to still soak up life from the parched earth. Along with this change of scenery came crows. First it was only one or two, that studied the traveling pair closely and only moved to flap a few feet ahead, but then there were three, and four, and then half a dozen crows. Sitting. Watching. Waiting.

Skout drank the last of the water. The canteen only seemed a little put off by missing all its water, but it was even more put off by the sight of all the crows, It shrank back against the Nomad’s chest, and he gave it a reassuring pat.

About a dozen crows perched around them now, but they kept walking.

“Y’know,” Skout began. Did her voice shake? No. “I’ll bet these crows ain’t even after us. In fact, I’ll bet they were just hopin’ for a drink. Sorry there, crows!” she called. “No water here!” A glance at the Nomad showed him staring blankly ahead. His hands shook.

Skout put a hand on his shoulders. “Don’t worry, friend, it’ll be okay. Heck, you’re a scarecrow, ain’t you? They wouldn’t _dare_ touch us.”

He glanced at her and managed a small smile- that special little smile he did, with only his eyes. But it quickly fell in favor of being tense, worried, and even a little too scared to think.

They walked and walked. The sun rose higher, and higher. Then it began to fall. Skout’s stomach rumbled with hunger, but she didn’t complain. There were matters a tad more pressing to deal with- though she did eye one of the crows now and then with a hungry eye. It wouldn’t be too hard to kill one, surely? But then there was the matter of what the rest of them would do. She didn’t want to know what the rest of them would do.

Finally, as the sun began to touch the horizon, and as the sky faded from blue into deep oranges and reds, and as Skout’s legs were threatening to fall out from under her, and as the Nomad hovered on the edge of a panic attack, and as the swarm of crows truly grew into that- a swarm- one of the crows finally spoke.

“Nomad.” The crow that opened its beak was no different from the rest. The voice oozed from it, thick as syrup and dripping with a gentle poison.

The Nomad, with a surprising grace, pointed to himself. _Me?_

The crow chuckled, and the others joined it. “Would you prefer I use a different name? Knight, perhaps. Friend, isn’t that what you like people to call you? Or Scarecrow. Of course, you don’t scare me.” Now every crow, around two dozen, spoke in the same mellifluous voice.

“Oh,” Skout said in a small voice. “So, that thing about El Rey and the crows, she was- that really was true. Good to know.”

“Oh? And who’s this?” As one, the crows turned their gazes on Skout.

The Nomad tensed, ready to jump between Skout and any attack, but then he hesitated. They were surrounded. How could he stand between her and the enemy if the enemy was all around them? He settled for shaking his head fiercely.

“A friend of yours? Interesting. She looks like someone I knew quite well, once upon a time.” The crows considered her for a moment more before once again turning their stares on the Nomad.

“You have something I want, Nomad,” El Rey said. “Something you’ve been keeping from me for a long time. And I think that I’m tired of waiting.”

The Nomad tensed, but before he could clap, something at his chest wriggled. The canteen popped out. It landed in the dust, brandishing its tiny fists in a gesture of defiance. It rushed one of the crows in a fantastic, _stupid_ display of bravery.

Almost casually, one of the crows drifted from its perch to snatch up the crow in too-long talons. It soared upwards, higher and higher. Then it let go. It took only moments for the canteen to reach the ground, where it promptly shattered. Dead.

Skout put a hand to her mouth. The Nomad stepped back, horrified.

El Rey chuckled. “Bold move. But not quite enough.” As one, the crows took to the air. At once the sky was filled with flapping wings and cruel beaks.

The Nomad clapped frantically. All around them, rocks and pebbles came to life and flung themselves at the enemy, holding tight to tails and wings, dragging the crows down and beating them with tiny fists. Skout threw what punches she could the crows’ way, and the Nomad did the best he could to shield her from their onslaught.

It wasn’t nearly enough. The crows dashed the rocks to pieces with their strong beaks, or flung them away, or if they could not at all be dissuaded, lifted them to great heights and let them, like the canteen, break into pieces on the ground below. And all the time, they attacked the Nomad. Ripping with their talons. Tearing with their beaks. Buffeting his face with their many, many wings.  He tried to bring his hands together to clap again, and half a dozen of the terrible black birds dove onto his hand, pecking and scratching and tearing until it was beyond repair.

He stared at it dumbly, then threw up his arm to protect his face from the crow that attacked his face. A mistake. As soon as his chest was exposed, the crows tore at it, through heavy layers of vest, and shirt, and the strong, sturdy fabric that covered his torso. Before he could do anything to stop them, or even to try, his heart, such as it was, lay exposed, the glowing stone that for so long had granted him life and magic.

“No-!” Skout reached out a desperate hand. But she was too late. The Nomad was too late. El Rey was not. As Skout stared helplessly, one of the crows swooped down, grabbed the stone in its beak, and pulled away. It stopped with a jerk. The stone was attached to a cord, and part of the cord was still buried deep in his chest.

The Nomad couldn’t seem to move. The most he could do was tremble, whole body tremors as the crow pulled harder and harder, while the rest of them tore still with their terrible beaks. A sizeable chunk of one leg was missing. Even that he was still standing was a surprise. The stone flickered.

“No!” Skout lunged forward, only to find her way blocked by crows, that swarmed her in turn, until she herself was covered by birds that only held her back, but with claws so sharp she still bled from dozens of tiny wounds that were made bigger by her struggles. “No, no, no-”

The cord snapped. The crow staggered into the blood-red sky with its prize. It carved a sharp turn straight east and kept flapping, glowing stone held triumphantly in its beak.

All at once, the rest of the crows relented, and once more formed a ragged circle around the pair.

The Nomad blinked, eyes fixed on the quickly-disappearing stone. Then he fell.

“ _No!_ ” Skout rushed to his side, and this time none of the crows stopped her. “Nomad, friend, c’mon, you gotta be okay-”

The Nomad blinked. Then he didn’t. Just a scarecrow now, torn beyond repair.

Something strange welled up in Skout’s chest and choked off whatever she had been going to say next. All she could manage was, “No… no, no, no,” over and over again.

“You know.”

Skout flinched. She turned to see, of course, crows. So many crows. “El Rey,” she whispered.

“You know,” El Rey said again, from all around her. “You don’t have to grieve like this for your friend.”

Skout rubbed at her eyes- had she been crying? “I- I don’t.”

“You don’t,” he assured her. “In fact, I’m feeling rather peckish.”

The crows watched her as one, pale yellow eyes glittering. Then they moved in.

 

**Author's Note:**

> el rey more like el bae


End file.
